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Black People Against Police Torture (BPAPT)

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Black People Against Police Torture (BPAPT) TORTURE IN THE HOMELAND: Failure of the United States to Implement the International Convention against Torture to protect the human rights of African- American Boys and African-American Men in Chicago, Illinois A Response to the fifth periodic report filed by The United States of America. The United States’ review will take place in Geneva on November 12 and 13, 2014. Submitted by: National Conference of Black Lawyers (NCBL) Black People Against Police Torture (BPAPT) Contact Info: Stan Willis (312) 750-1950 or [email protected] Sali Vickie Casanova Willis, [email protected] Endorsed by the following organizations and individuals: Mothers & Their Torture Victim Sons: Jeanette Plummer (Johnny Plummer); Glades James Daniel (Erwin Daniels); Almeater Maxson (Mark Maxson); Armanda Shackelford (Gerald Reed); Shirley Burgess (Wilbur Driver); Bertha Escamilla (Nick Escamilla); Sara Ortiz (William Netron); Anabel Perez (Jaime Hauad); Mary L. Johnson (Michael Johnson). Torture Victims/Survivors: Fabian Pico; Anthony Sims; Tyrone Reyna; Enrique Valdez; Eric Gomez; Oscar Gomez; Abel Quinones; Daniel Taylor; George Anderson; William Ephraim; Rudy Davilla; Clayborn Smith; Keith Walker; David Turner; Kilroy Watkins; Alphonso Pinex; Keith Eric Johnson; Nick Escamilla; Derrick Flewellen; Antoine Anderson; Donell Edwards; Joseph Jackson; Michael Carter; Andre Brown; Sean Tyler; Malik Taylor; Tron Williams; Miguel Morales; Gregory Logan; Antonio Nicholas; Johnathan Tolliver; Enrique Valdez; Xavier Catron; Jerry Gillespie; James De Avila; Tyrone Hood; Emmett White; Arnold Day; Antoine Ward; Richard Anthony; John Willer; Ivan Smith; Lamontreal Glinsey; Antwan Holiday; Marcus Jackson; Javon Deloney; Anthony Sims; Johnny Plummer; Michael Taylor; Kilroy Watkins; Reginald Henderson; Joseph Davis; Harold Hill; Dan Young; Peter Williams; Jeremy Allen; Marcus Wiggins; Robert Wilson; Richard Malek; Eric Gomez; Fred Ewing; Jason Miller; Shondell Walker; Carlos Santos; Marcellous Pittman; Antione Mason; Carl Williams; Tirzo Garcia; Jerome Johnson; James Freeman; Anthony Brown; and others. Community Supporters: Coalition of Black Trade Unionists; National Lawyers Guild; Prof. Harold Rogers; Sali Vickie Casanova Willis, BPAPT, Trinity UCC Justice Watch Team; Prof. Barbara Kessel; Cliff Kelley, WVON Talk Show Host; Prof A. Belden Fields, University of Illinois; Patricia Hill, Independent Human Rights Council; Kevin Tyson, Trinity UCC; Salim Muwakkil, editor of “In These Times” and WVON Talk show Host; Coy Pugh, former State Legislator; Kamm Howard, Chicago Chapter, National Coalition of Blacks for Reparations in America (N’COBRA), Helen Charity, Crystaline Charity, Attorney Standish E. Willis, NCBL, BPAPT. From 1972 well into the 1990s, over 100 African-American boys and men were tortured by former Chicago Police Commander Jon Burge and detectives under his command at Police Areas Two and Three in Chicago, Illinois. No less than seven independent investigations and numerous courts have concluded that the detectives under Burge’s command committed acts of torture, which included electrically shocking men’s genitals, ears and lips with a cattle prod or an electric shock box, suffocating individuals with plastic bags, mock executions, and beatings with telephone books and rubber hoses to extract confessions. These coerced statements were used against the tortured victims in their unjustified prosecutions, as a result of which, all were found guilty and sentenced to lengthy prison terms or, in several instances, sentenced to death. Yet, until very recently, not a single officer had ever been prosecuted for these acts, which violate criminal laws, the victims’ Constitutional rights, and international treaties banning the use of torture. In October, 2008, former police commander Jon Burge was indicted and subsequently convicted in June, 2010 by the United States Attorney in the Northern District of Illinois on charges of obstruction of justice and perjury in his efforts to cover up his crimes. Meanwhile, many of the victims of his torture conspiracy continue to languish behind bars based on confessions beaten and tortured out of them. 1 SUMMARY OF ISSUES A. Failure to promptly investigate and prosecute crimes of torture. 1. Although Government officials had been on notice for over 20 years that African-American boys and men had been victims of torture by Chicago Police Officers in violation of: - Article 5 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and article 7 of the International Covenant of Civil and Political Rights, both of which provide that no one may be subjected to torture or to cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment; - The Declaration on the Protection of All Persons from Being Subjected to Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment, adopted by the General Assembly on 9 December 1975 (resolution 3452; - Article 1 of the Convention Against Torture (CAT) provides that “…the purposes of this Convention, torture means any act by which severe pain or suffering, whether physical or mental, is intentionally inflicted on a person for such purposes as obtaining from him or a third person information or a confession…for any reason based on discrimination of any kind, when such pain or suffering is inflicted by or at the instigation of or with the consent or acquiescence of a public official or other person acting in an official capacity….” 2. Government officials intentionally and deliberately failed to prosecute the Chicago Police Officers that engaged in the racially motivated torture of over 100 African-American boys and men for over a two decade period, and that Government officials intentionally allowed the Statute of Limitations to bar the prosecution on more substantive criminal charges. For example: - On or about November 2, 1990, Office of Professional Standards “OPS” investigator Michael Goldston submitted a 25 page Report to the Superintendent of Police, Leroy Martin, concerning allegations of torture and abuse by Chicago Police detectives against African-American arrestees. The Goldston Report included the following findings: As to the matter of alleged physical abuse, the preponderance of the evidence is that it did occur and that it was systematic. The time span involved covers more than ten years. (1980-1990) The type of abuse described was not limited to the usual beating, but went into such esoteric areas as psychological techniques and planned torture….The number of incidents in which an Area 2 command member is identified as an accused can lead to only one conclusion. Particular command members were aware of the systematic abuse and participated in it either by actively participating in same or failing to take any action to bring it to an end. This conclusion is also supported by the number of incidents in which Area 2 officers are named at the location of the abuse. OPS Special Project Conclusion Reports and Findings, dated November 2, 1990 (Goldston Report); 2 - U.S. District Court Judge Milton Shadur found the following in his decision in U.S. ex.rel. Maxwell v. Gilmore, 37 F. Supp. 2d 1078, 1094 (N.D.Ill.1999): It is now common knowledge that in the early to mid-1980s Chicago Police Commander Jon Burge and many officers working under him regularly engaged in the physical abuse and torture of prisoners to extract confessions. Both internal police accounts and numerous lawsuits and appeals brought by suspects alleging such abuse substantiate that those beatings and other means of torture occurred as an established practice, not just on an isolated basis. 3 - Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals Judge Diane Wood found in her concurring opinion in Hinton v. Uchtman, 395 F 3d 810, 822-23 (7th Cir. 2005): The claim Hinton made regarding his confession illustrates dramatically the high price our system of criminal justice pays when police abuse runs rampant: a cloud hangs over everything that the bad actors touched…[A] mountain of evidence indicates that torture was an ordinary occurrence at the Area Two station of the Chicago Police Department during the exact time period pertinent to Hinton’s case. Eventually, as this sorry tale came to light, the Office of Professional Standards Investigation of the Police Department looked into the allegations, and it issued a report that concluded that police torture under the command of Lt. Jon Burge… had been a regular part of the system for more than ten years. And, in language reminiscent of the news reports of 2004 concerning the notorious Abu Ghraib facility in Iraq, the report said that ‘[t]he type of abuse described was not limited to the usual beating, but went into such esoteric areas as psychological techniques and planned torture….’Indeed, the alleged conduct is so extreme that, if proven, it would fall within the prohibitions established by the United Nations Convention Against Torture (“CAT”), which defines torture as ‘any act by which severe pain or suffering, whether physical or mental, is intentionally inflicted on a person for such purposes as obtaining from him or a third person information or a confession…,’ thereby violating the fundamental human rights principles that the United States is committed to uphold… 4 - On January 10, 2003, Illinois Governor George Ryan granted four Burge death row torture victims pardons on the basis of innocence, finding: The category of horrors was hard to believe. If I hadn’t reviewed the cases myself, I wouldn’t believe it. We have evidence from four men, who did not know each other, all getting beaten
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